Hong Kong in the World

The following sections are included:

• Preface
• Acknowledgement
• Contents

As a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Hong Kong enjoys many international privileges which other Chinese cities do not have, notably in its ability to participate in international organizations and events independent of Beijing — albeit only with authorization. These affairs are referred to as Hong Kong’s “external relations”, the term being used to differentiate them from “diplomatic relations”, which only sovereign states like China itself can exercise. However, the line which divides the two terms is not clearly defined, and indeed is impossible to define clearly. In other words, whether certain gestures made by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (HKSARG) have encroached upon the issue of sovereignty is an area fraught with ambiguity, and it is one which deserves greater academic attention. This issue is relevant not only to Hong Kong and China, but also finds resonance in other parts of the world. If the issue is properly managed, not only can harm be avoided to the maternal sovereignty, but benefit conferred on the “motherland” in the global arena from the addition of a subsidiary voice. The outline of the chapter is as follows: in section 1, the special status of Hong Kong is theorized under the concept of paradiplomacy; in section 2, other comparable cases are discussed; section 3 looks at the recent trend in China towards a flexibility in facing sovereignty issues. A brief description of Hong Kong’s potential role in Chinese diplomacy is given as a conclusion.

As was discussed in the previous introductory chapter, how much room for manoeuvre Hong Kong has in extending its influence in external relations is largely dependent on how specific policies or practices are interpreted and subsequently carried out. The Special Administrative Region Government in Hong Kong has played an important role in the realization of these interpretations. In this chapter, a review will be made of the performance of the administration under Donald Tsang and Leung Chun-ying in cases which reflect their handling of Hong Kong’s external relations.

The return of the sovereignty of Hong Kong from Britain to China is now almost two decades behind us. The difficulty of defining Hong Kong’s new global identity after the handover, beyond having a mere economic function, presented a challenge to the long-term vision and creativity of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Government. Hong Kong’s global position has since changed and it is now in direct competition with cities of Greater China like Shanghai or Taipei. There has also been a regional repositioning for Hong Kong in relation to the Pearl River Delta. It seems that the HKSARG was aware of the identity problem early on, as shown by its attempt to redefine a unique, global role for Hong Kong internationally through launching a positioning exercise. Promoted as the “Brand Hong Kong” campaign, the exercise had two goals: to create a new strategic position for Hong Kong in the international arena, and to regain the confidence of the local population in Hong Kong remaining “the” world city in the region, with the aspirational calculation that Hong Kong would become “Asia’s World City” (AWC) and continue to outperform competitors like Shanghai over the next 30 years.2 The question is: can a city be simply re-branded in this manner?…

Living in a traditional refugee society, the Chinese people of Hong Kong pre-1997 were used to being viewed as a special branch of the Chinese diaspora (defined as ethnic Chinese residing outside the formal territorial boundaries of the People’s Republic of China). Although the PRC did not start to internationalize until 1978, Hong Kong had long since established itself as the most liberal city of the Greater China Region in the eyes of the Western world. Since 1997, and the establishment of the Hong Kong SAR as a part of China, Hong Kong people have remained classified by the Chinese government as non-domestic citizens who do not enjoy the same rights as Chinese citizens. Regardless of the definition, the status of Hong Kong and its possible contribution to contemporary Chinese diplomacy since the handover of Hong Kong’s sovereignty has been under-explored by the academic community. Not until the election of Margaret Chan as the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2006 had Hong Kong Chinese played such an international role. What is the diplomatic benefit to Beijing of using the Hong Kong identity? What are the patterns of the Hong Kong Chinese which function and assist China’s internationalization?…

The year 2006 appears to have marked the rise of Asian influence in the international arena. The positions of secretary-general of the United Nations (UN) and director-general (DG) of the World Health Organization were both taken up by Asian candidates. While the installation of Ban Kimoon at the UN was a result of realpolitik compromise, and did not leave much of a role for his native South Korean government to play, the victory of Margaret Chan in the WHO DG election was regarded as a remarkable achievement of Chinese diplomacy and proof of an innovative approach by the former Leninist state. Although Chan is celebrated as the first-ever Chinese person to head a significant international organization, her identity is more complex than appears at first sight. As a director of the Department of Health in colonial Hong Kong, with no prior personal connection to Beijing, Chan was an unexpected choice. What was the benefit to Beijing of using Chan’s Hong Kong identity, and what precisely is this identity? How did Chan’s fellow citizens view the campaign? Will Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” approach be enhanced, or hampered, by this development? While Beijing has loudly extolled the meaning of Chan’s success to China in general, these questions concerning the interaction between Beijing and Hong Kong remain relatively understudied…

Since the handover of its sovereignty to the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong has had increasingly to rely on Beijing to sustain its economic growth and to maintain its competitiveness in the global arena. The almost unconditional support offered by Beijing is given largely on the assumption that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, by using its global connections, developed infrastructure and valuable human resources, will continue to make a unique contribution to China’s current rise. For the immediate future, Hong Kong people undoubtedly have many attributes that are likely to help them remain more competitive than their mainland counterparts. However, confidence and self-perception in Hong Kong have become eroded in recent years. What might the implications be if Hong Kong’s next generation, based on their personal interactions with the increasing number of mainland Chinese now studying and working in Hong Kong, no longer see themselves as possessing any convincing long-term advantages over their mainland classmates and colleagues? How can the comparative competitiveness of Hong Kong’s youth, as they see it themselves and which can be quite different from the reality, be measured? How do both local and mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong universities assess their respective future competitiveness? And will these changes in perception affect the overall power structure between Hong Kong and Beijing within the “one country, two systems” framework, and result in an incremental decrease in the level of importance of Hong Kong as seen by Beijing?…

Scholars of Sino-US relations have generally downplayed, if not ignored, the history of the United States’ involvement with Hong Kong. This was particularly true during the Cold War. The tendency arises partly because Hong Kong, a non-state actor, is overshadowed on the international stage by East Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea, with their ability to form various bilateral and multilateral military and strategic ties with other countries. For a long while, Hong Kong was viewed as an “appendage of Sino-British relations” and the level of American interest in the territory was comparatively low. While the resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong by China in 1997 represents an important juncture in Chinese diplomatic history, as studies by scholars Ting Wai, Chiu Hungdah and Zheng Yongnian have shown, it is largely unclear what effect this resumption has had on US–Hong Kong relations. This lack of clarity has been accentuated by both the change in American strategic policy since the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the absence of threats stemming from Hong Kong…

Following last chapter’s discussion of US–Hong Kong relations, this chapter looks at an extended, broader angle of Sino-US relations by examining two events, the EP-3 crisis (2001) involving a US spy plane which took place in a region of Asia that includes Hong Kong, and the encounter of the USS Kitty Hawk — a frequent visitor to Hong Kong — with a Chinese submarine near Okinawa (2006), as case studies to argue that rather than presenting insurmountable roadblocks to cooperation these events have presented significant opportunities for China and the US to learn from mistakes that might have inadvertently escalated both incidents into deadly situations. Through discussing the responses of each side, it will be explained how China and the US are now better equipped to cope with future crises that might carry the potential to seriously damage their relationship, and how one outcome of this change in the communication mechanism requires Hong Kong’s participation in what are undoubtedly delicate areas in US–Hong Kong relations…

In April 2005, a series of anti-Japanese demonstrations broke out in China and South Korea to protest against “Japanese militarism” and Tokyo’s bid for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Liu Shih-diing published a perceptive article in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies in November 2006, describing these events as a milestone in the development of China’s “online nationalism”. However, is this form of Chinese nationalism to be found throughout China and/or the Greater China Region? Do internet users – who are here called “cybermen” — and who are mainland Chinese as described in Liu’s article have a different nationalist attitude to their compatriots living on China’s periphery in places such as Hong Kong? If Liu’s observation were correct and representative of contemporary Chinese politics, would it be applicable to an eventual future democratized China?…

Contemporary Chinese policy on the Middle East can be summarized by a list of agendas, such as to mobilize diplomatic support against the US and Taiwan, to facilitate China’s economic expansion policy, to secure energy supplies for domestic consumption, to enhance regional security against terrorism, and to build a united front with Middle Eastern regimes against Western-styled democratization, among much else. But does all this have anything to do with Hong Kong? As a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong is authorized by Beijing to handle its own external relations in issues not relating to national sovereignty and defence. In the colonial era, Hong Kong was given considerable latitude by London in the international arena as a distinctive player. Unfortunately, the importance of Hong Kong’s external relations has been given little attention by academia. Those few in the field have either paid attention only to Hong Kong’s bilateral relations with great powers like the US, or seen Hong Kong’s economic relations with the rest of world as what are of prime importance…

With China’s rise as a 21^st-century global power, its relationship with its neighbours has become instrumental in maintaining global stability and prosperity. Current discussion tends to focus on the regional integration between China and its East Asian neighbours, such as Japan and Korea, while the potential for integration with countries in South Asia, despite the creation of the term “Chindia”, remains relatively uncharted. Is such integration feasible and what will help it happen? In an attempt to address these questions, this chapter looks at the education of the South Asian ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, and its inherent disadvantage…

The development of Sino-Latin American relations, especially in the areas of commerce and trade, has been both diplomatically and strategically important to China in recent years. In 2004, China’s President Hu Jintao set a goal to increase Sino-Latin American trade to 10 billion US dollars by 2010. However, trading growth between China and the Latin American countries grew more rapidly than expected, and this goal was achieved in 2007, three years ahead of schedule. The abundance of Latin America’s natural resources provides further incentive for China to promote diplomatic relations between itself and the region. As Latin America is often referred to as being in the “backyard” of the United States, it is also of great geopolitical importance for China as it could be used as a card held up the sleeve with which to check on and to contain US ambitions. However, in existing studies on Sino-Latin American relations, scholars have focused on formal, inter-governmental relations between these two regions while ignoring the important role civilian interactions have also played. This chapter discusses the part that Hong Kong business tycoon Li Ka-shing has taken in Latin America and analyses its potential contribution and influence in the development of Sino-Latin American relations…

What is likely to be the future of Hong Kong’s external relations? This final chapter will outline and explain the differences in the progress of the integration of the former colonial port cities of Hong Kong and Goa with their “motherlands”: China and India, respectively. Since decolonization, Goa has, relatively speaking, been better integrated into India than has Hong Kong with China. Given that the perceived “hinterland” of these port cities to a great extent relates to their chosen affiliation, in both the sociocultural, political and economic sense, the level of integration in the postcolonial era with the motherland is reflected by the sense of identity which each possesses. Two main factors help shape this identity: the public image of the British and Portuguese colonial powers, and the image of the port cities’ post-colonial motherlands…

The following section is included:

• Index